fat and scrappy: Patches

As you may or may not know, my family has a total of 17 dogs. Well really 19 dogs but three are still at my parents old house under the care of the housesitter and Tiger found a new home with one of the guys that works in the warehouse. This was a weekend trial for Tiger. Chris (warehouse guy) took her home this weekend to see how she meshed with his family. While I hate to see Tiger leave, we have too many dogs and being with fewer dogs would really be great for Tiger. However, I will miss our sweet Tiger.

I thought I would introduce (or re-introduce as the case may be) a couple of our other dogs. The first one is Convict. Convict really is everyone's favorite. No one really knows what kind of dog Convict is. I would say he is part Pit because his head has that Pit look. But his overall size is probably double that of a Pit. Someone said he looks part German Shepard. Who really knows. Although at first meeting with Convict, he is a scary and intimidating looking dude. If you only knew. He is a sweetheart. Not to say he won't fight a dog (or whatever) if needed. Since we have moved to the College Station area, Convict has got caught up with some wild hogs on two separate occassions. You cannot even imagine how expensive it is to sew up a wild hog wound. Now the dogs seem to be fighting with coyotes. Convict came home the other day with a few scratches on his nose. Awwww, country living. The one thing I like about Convict is the color of his eyes. They are perfectly matched to the color is his coat. A golden honey color. Gorgeous... but still scary looking at first. Lately Convict has been having trouble with his hips. He likes to think he is still a young dog. He is not. He spends his day laying in the cool comfortably temped warehouse which stays a cool 58-60 degrees (for the wine). He does his running at night. He runs the streets (well the acres) with Patches and Walker whom you will meet in a moment. Too much running the streets creates some sore muscles for an aging dog like Convict. I don't know how long we have had Convict but his back story is... My mom and stepfather saw him running behind the warehouse (in Pleasanton, TX at the time). He had a thick chain around his neck. He had broken away from somewhere with scratches, scars, and nicked ears. He was a very agressive dog at the time. He obviously belonged to some street thug somewhere thinking he was a badass gangbanger with a badass dog. It did take some work to get that agression out of Convict. While he doesn't back down from a fight with our dogs he is extremely gentle. A true sweety!This is Patches. Patches has a dear place in my heart. When we first moved to the new warehouse outside of College Station, Patches lived down the road. Patches would come to visit and just pal around. We would all talk and pet him because he was a kind and gentle young dog. Not a pup but not necessarily full-grown. He had all sorts of names. Smiley (obviously because it looked like he was smiling). White Fang. Freckles. He went through several names. I went to the bank one day and say Patches at the end of the road. I stopped to talk to him. I knew something wasn't right because he wasn't himself. I let him be and was on my way to the bank. Forty-five minutes later or so I saw Patches on my return trip. This time Patches was curled up in a fetal position in a drainage culvert. I knew something was really wrong because he didn't respond when I called him. And I saw blood. I raced up to the warehouse and got my mom. I always go to my mom when one of the dogs is hurt. I explained that something was wrong with Patches and we raced back down the road. She went up to Patches and she could see there was alot of damage and blood. The immediate decision was to take Patches to the vet. I went back to the warehouse to pick-up our warehouse guy to help me take Patches to the vet. The warehouse guy proceeded to pick-up Patches and hold him all the way to the vet. We wrapped my coat around Patches since he was bleeding. Patches was so lifeless that I kept asking if he was still alive all the way to the vet. What worried me was that he had a little blood dripping from his nose. We all thought he had been hit by a car. Once we go to the vet, they took him immediately and set to see what was wrong. Come to find out, he was not hit by a car at all. Patches has been in some kind of fight with another animal.... whether that be a dog, coyote, or wild hog, no one knows. Hell it could have been a Chupacabra for all we know. The insides of his back legs were all ripped up with some of the muscle gone. Not a pleasant picture... imagine having to witness it. Once Patch was released from the vet, I was tasked as his Physical Therapist. His woulds had to be flushed to promote healing. Needless to say, Patch got to sleep inside and come to work with me everyday. He and I were buddies even if he hated the water treatment. His wounds healed wonderfully. He still has some visible scarring but no other reminders of that horrible time. This is partly where Patches got his name. I had named him Freckles. After his hospitalization, his name became Patches. His patches of color on his coat also helped with the name. Patches is still one of my favorites! On a side note, after Patches accident we notified his owners of his whereabouts. His owners are farm laborers that speak Spanish only. I called their boss and asked him to explain the situation. The situation was Patches was attacked, we took care of his vet trip, and he was theirs to claim with no worries about the expenses. No claim was every made by Patches' owners. Patches should thank his lucky stars and I think he does!
This is Walker. Walker is Patches' son and Texas Ranger's brother. (Yes, Texas Ranger is another member of our family). Walker and Texas Ranger were pups at Patches former home down the street. Their owners went home to Mexico for a visit during Christmas of 2006. It was a good week or so before I noticed that their owners were gone. I also did not see anyone visiting their house to feed them. I called the boss of the owners of Walker and Texas Ranger. He suggested the dogs be shot versus starving to death. He also noted their owners would be home eventually but he wasn't quite sure how long they would be in Mexico, a good month or so is what he said. So we started feeding Walker and Texas Ranger on a daily basis. At first, they were starving and couldn't eat fast enough. Eventually they got used to knowing we would come by with food. I tried to go the long way to feed them so they wouldn't know I was coming from the warehouse. All my stepfather could say was that we didn't need two more dogs at the warehouse. Well you know the rest of this story... Walker and Texas Ranger soon found their way to the warehouse. They are not dumb dogs. Soon enough they came for good. Their owners were gone to Mexico from say December 23rd or so to March 12th. I know March 12th exactly. They never came to claim Walker or Texas Ranger and I know they have to know where they are. Pitiful that they left those pups to fend for themselves for two and a half months. Every now and then, I did see someone at their house but not enough to know they were left to care for these pups. I don't know what they were thinking.